Just a few observations :
I worked in a large 2 screen theatre in a large city
back 30 years ago. We opened 'God Father'in one 1100
seat autorium. Packed every night for nearly 6 weeks.
It was the first time to increase our tickets above
$ 3.00 to I believe $ 3.25 a ticket.
1. Theatres have a HUGH expense in cleanup. A private
crew of 8-12 worked from 1 am until somestimes 9 in the morning.
2.The trash removal company was a large expense. Truck
after truck to haul rubbish away.
3. The house size air/heating was breaking all the time.
It cost a fortuned. $ 7 to $15,000 a pop was nothing.
4. Only union projector/operators could be used and they were paid very, very well.
5. Advertising in local newspapers was very expensive.
6. We had a crew of 30 to 50 YOUNG kids to call on...with as many a 20 working per showing.
O yea...my take home pay was about $ 260.oo week. I was glad to get much.
I think everyone realizes that theaters have expenses but so do every other type of business. Taking your numbers the theater at that time made approximately $600,000 in ticket sales for the 6 weeks you described assuming there was more than one showing and probably at least as much in concessions.
So we are talking close to $1.2 million by the time all is said an done. Maybe I'm inflating the numbers a bit because I'm sure not all showings were packed but I assumed most tickets sold also resulted in at least the same amount of concessions. Maybe at that time you could get a drink and popcorn for under 3.25 I don't know. Either way we still talking a huge amount of revenue even after things are adjusted and the movie companies are paid their cut. So there is plenty left over to run the theather and pay employees minimum wage for cleanup.